Palanca award-winning authors, editors, and bookworms share favorite Pinoy-authored books

 

What's your favorite Filipino book?

By Jessica Pag-iwayan

Published Aug 29, 2026 04:12 pm   As Buwan ng Wika draws to a close this August, what better way to celebrate the Filipino language than by revisiting stories written by Filipino authors?

For this forum, we asked Palanca award-winning authors as well as some content creators to share the Filipino books that have stayed with them. From gritty fiction and crime novels to coming-of-age stories and horror books, their picks show the range of Filipino literature and the different ways stories can shape how young readers see themselves, their communities, and the world around them.

‘Mapanglaw ang Mukha ng Buwan’ by Efren R. Abueg

‘I became a writer because of Efren R. Abueg’s short story “Mapanglaw ang Mukha ng Buwan,” which is included in the book ‘Mga Agos sa Disyerto,’ alongside works by Dominador B. Mirasol, Rogelio L. Ordoñez, Edgardo M. Reyes, and Rogelio R. Sikat.

This book has had a profound influence on several generations of Filipino short story writers. It also demonstrated the power of words to give strength and support to the oppressed and the disadvantaged, especially those who have no voice in society.’

Joe Chua

‘Andong Agimat’ by Arnold Arre,
‘Libing Isa’ by MPAU,
‘Patay Kung Patay (Death be Damned)’ by Mike Alcazaren, Noel Pascual, and AJ Bernardo, and
‘Trese’ by Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo

Special mentions: 'Wasted' by Gerry Alanguilan

It’s a hyperviolent comic book was the right thing for me to read at the right time and was what got me interested in local comics. I don’t know if I can recommend it now in light of all the school violence, though.

Ardie Aquino and Macoy Tang’s 'School Run' is also hyperviolent, and I’m interested to see where the story goes.

Yvette Tan

‘Sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag’ by Edgardo M. Reyes

‘I love this book not only because Reyes is a writer I admire, but also because of the novel's effective portrayal of the cruel and dangerous face of the city. It realistically presents major social issues, vividly narrates the true condition of the poor, and depicts the complex struggles of ordinary workers. It also highlights the voicelessness of the poor in the face of oppression. And another thing I value most about this novel is that it is not only the story of Julio and Ligaya, but also the story of many Filipinos struggling to survive.’

Perry Mangilaya

‘Macarthur’ by Bob Ong

‘Gritty and unapologetic, Bob Ong’s ‘Macarthur’ is a book I read many years ago yet still think about every now and then. It highlights the strength of laughter as a coping mechanism. It introduces moral conundrums. It enrages. It is hard to believe the book is just 98 pages because it manages to do so much.’

Firas Abbound

‘Dekada ’70’ by Lualhati Bautista

‘If I have to answer only one, I’ll go with “Dekada ‘70” by Lualhati Bautista. This changed the way I read (fiction) books from treating them as pure escapism to realizing they hold powerful reflections of our history and society.’

Veron Cruz

‘Kulang na Silya’ by Ricky Lee

‘There are so many books to choose from, but I’ll keep coming back to “Kulang na Silya” by Ricky Lee. There are also so many Ricky Lee books to choose from, but this one, specifically, really feels like medicine for a creative who is about to give up, or for anyone, really, who is going through a difficult time. Truly, a National Artist for a reason.’

Paula Michaella

‘Janus Silang’ by Edgar Calabia Samar

It is a five-book series that follows Janus, a 14-year-old gamer who plays Tala, an online game inspired by Filipino mythology. Everything changes one game night when all the other players suddenly turn to dust, leaving Janus as the only survivor.

Janus follows the chosen-one trope. The series starts with a horror-esque atmosphere and gradually becomes more fantasy as its universe expands. Along the way, readers are introduced to a wide array of creatures from Filipino mythology and folklore, along with exciting and action-packed fight scenes.

Readers who grew up watching ‘Pedro Penduko,’ ‘Wansapanataym,’ and ‘Kakabakaba Adventures’ will surely find something nostalgic in the series. On the other hand, younger generations are in for a treat as they explore the richness of Filipino culture.

JP Obias

These choices may come from different genres and generations, but they share one thing: each book left a lasting impression on its reader. And as Buwan ng Wika comes to an end, they offer a reminder that Filipino stories are not simply something to celebrate for one month. They are stories worth returning to, especially for a new generation of readers.

Philippine peso Asia's worst-performing currency—Japanese bank

 

By Derco Rosal

Published Aug 31, 2026 12:00 am

The Philippine peso sank to a record low against the US dollar, making it Asia’s worst-performing currency over the past week as soaring energy import costs and widening trade deficit offset recent central bank rate hikes.

In an Aug. 28 commentary, Japanese lender MUFG Bank Ltd. noted that the peso’s underperformance stems from persistent pressure on the nation’s external account.

The local currency closed at ₱62.265 per dollar on Friday, Aug. 28, sinking past its previous historic low of ₱61.888 set just a day earlier.

Data from the Bankers Association of the Philippines showed the peso opened at ₱62.05 before hitting an intraday low of ₱62.27, driven by a surge in safe-haven demand amid rising geopolitical tensions.

The peso lost one percent for the week, extending a broader slide. According to MUFG, the currency is down 1.6 percent since the start of August, 1.4 percent for the current quarter, and 5.8 percent year-to-date—continuing a multi-year slump from 2024 and 2025.

The Thai baht also dropped 0.8 percent during the week. 
“Both currencies remained vulnerable to concerns over external balances, softer growth momentum and sensitivity to energy prices,” MUFG stated.

In contrast, the South Korean won and New Taiwan dollar gained 1.1 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively, against the greenback.

“Both currencies were supported by continued enthusiasm around the AI and semiconductor cycle, which boosted sentiment towards North Asian technology exporters and helped attract equity inflows,” MUFG added.

The Malaysian ringgit and Indian rupee also edged higher, backed by relatively stable domestic economic conditions.

To counter mounting pressures, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) raised its benchmark policy rate by 25 basis points to five percent, marking its third consecutive hike aimed at reining in sticky inflation.

Headline inflation slowed to a three-month low of 6.2 percent in July from 6.4 percent in June, down from its peak of 7.2 percent in April. Core inflation—which excludes volatile food and energy items—eased to 4.2 percent from 4.4 percent.

Despite the tighter policy stance, the peso’s decline accelerated after government data showed July imports jumped 59.7 percent, blowing out the trade deficit to roughly $6 billion, MUFG noted.

These widening imbalances and elevated commodity prices are expected to keep monetary authorities cautious. 
“Persistent inflation, a widening external deficit and peso weakness leave the BSP open to further tightening, albeit at a slower pace,” the bank said.

MUFG added that upcoming implementation of record-high wage adjustments presents additional upside risks to inflation, keeping the door open for another 25-basis-point hike.

Looking ahead, MUFG forecasts the peso to recover to ₱61.75 per dollar this quarter, strengthen to ₱61.5 in the fourth quarter, reach ₱61 by the first quarter of 2027, and move into the mid-₱60 range by the second quarter of 2027.

Nobody Is Perfect?

 

THIS famous line is spoken by Osgood Fielding III, played by Joe E. Brown in Some Like It Hot (directed by Billy Wilder, 1959).

Is it true that nobody is perfect? It’s true! No one is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes. It’s part of being human. If someone you know makes a mistake, try to be understanding and forgiving instead of immediately jumping to criticizing them.

Many of us believe perfectionism is a positive. You may count me in.

More often than I’d like to admit, something seemingly inconsequential will cause the same feeling to rear its head again. Something as small as accidentally squashing the makeup I was bringing my first girlfriend’s family for Christmas can tumble around in my mind for several days, accompanied by occasional voices like “How stupid!” and “You should have known better”.

Falling short of a bigger goal, even when I know achieving it would be near-impossible, can temporarily flatten me. When a former agent told me that she knew I was going to write a book someday but that the particular idea I’d pitched her didn’t suit the market, I felt deflated in a gut-punching way that went beyond disappointment. The negative drowned out the positive. “You’re never going to write a book,” my internal voice said. “You’re not good enough.” That voice didn’t care that this directly contradicted what the agent actually said. And, up to now, I haven’t finish my first book, yet… .

That’s the thing about perfectionism. It takes no prisoners.

If I’ve struggled with perfectionism, I’m far from alone. The tendency starts young – and it’s becoming more common. Thomas Curran and Andrew Hill’s recent meta-analysis of rates of perfectionism from 1989 to 2016, the first study to compare perfectionism across generations, found significant increases among more recent undergraduates in the US, UK and Canada. In other words, the average college student last year was much more likely to have perfectionistic tendencies than a student in the 1990’s or early 2000’s.

It’s heading toward an epidemic and public health issue. It’s a great quotation from Katie Rasmussen.

“As many as two in five kids and adolescents are perfectionists,” says Katie, who researches child development and perfectionism at West Virginia University. “We’re starting to talk about how it’s heading toward an epidemic and public health issue.”

The rise in perfectionism doesn’t mean each generation is becoming more accomplished. It means we’re getting sicker, sadder and even undermining our own potential.

Here is another great example: a perfectionist, French Claude Monet often destroyed his paintings in a temper while saying, ‘My life has been nothing but a failure’.

Perfectionism, after all, is an ultimately self-defeating way to move through the world. It is built on an excruciating irony: making, and admitting, mistakes is a necessary part of growing and learning and being human. It also makes you better at your career and relationships and life in general. By avoiding mistakes at any cost, a perfectionist can make it harder to reach their own lofty goals.

But the drawback of perfectionism isn’t just that it holds you back from being your most successful, productive self. Perfectionistic tendencies have been linked to a laundry list of clinical issues: depression and anxiety (even in children), self-harm, social anxiety disorder and agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, binge eating, anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, insomnia, hoarding, dyspepsia, chronic headaches, and, most damning of all, even early mortality and suicide.

“It’s something that cuts across everything, in terms of psychological problems,” says Sarah Egan, a senior research fellow at the Curtin University in Perth who specializes in perfectionism, eating disorders and anxiety.

Culturally, I learned, we often see perfectionism as a positive. Even saying you have perfectionistic tendencies can come off as a coy compliment to yourself; it’s practically a stock answer to the “What’s your worst trait?” question in job interviews. (Past employers, now you know! I wasn’t just being cute).

It is difficult to tell who is motivated and conscientious and who is a perfectionist. In my daily teaching at the University of Southeastern Philippines and Ateneo de Davao in Davao City, I meet the student who works hard and gets a poor mark. If she/her tells herself: “I’m disappointed, but it’s okay; I’m still a good person overall,” that’s healthy. If the message is: “I’m a failure. I’m not good enough,” that’s perfectionism.

That inner voice criticizes different things for different people – work, relationships, tidiness, fitness. My own tendencies may differ greatly from somebody else’s. It can take someone who knows me well to pick up on them. (When I messaged one of my friends I was writing this story, he immediately sent back a long line of laughing emojis).

Perfectionists can make smooth sailing into a storm, a brief ill wind into a category-five hurricane. At the very least, they perceive it that way. And, because the ironies never end, the behaviors perfectionists adapt ultimately, actually, do make them more likely to fail.

Thinking of perfectionism, makes me think of my own childhood peppered with avoiding (or starting and quitting) almost every sport there was. If I wasn’t adept at something almost from the get-go, I didn’t want to continue – especially if there was an audience watching. In fact, multiple studies have found a correlation between perfectionism and performance anxiety even in children as young as 10.

Mental health problems aren’t just caused by perfectionism; some of these problems can lead to perfectionism, too. One recent study, for example, found that over a one-year period, college students who had social anxiety were more likely to become perfectionists – but not vice versa.

When it comes to the most dramatic example, suicide, numerous studies also have found that perfectionism is a lethal contributor all on its own. One found that perfectionism made depressed patients more likely to think about suicide even above and beyond feelings of hopelessness. A recent meta-analysis, the most complete on the suicide-perfectionism link to date, found that nearly every perfectionistic tendency – including being concerned over mistakes, feeling like you are never good enough, having critical parents, or simply having high personal standards – was correlated with thinking about suicide more frequently. (The two exceptions: being organised or demanding of others).

Some of those criteria, particularly pressure from parents and perfectionistic concerns, also were correlated with more suicide attempts.

In many ways, poorer health outcomes for perfectionists aren’t that surprising. “Perfectionists are pretty much awash with stress. Even when it’s not stressful, they’ll typically find a way to make it stressful,” says Gordon Flett, who has studied perfectionism for more than 30 years and whose assessment scale developed with Paul Hewitt is considered a gold standard. Plus, he says, if your perfectionism finds an outlet in, say, workaholism, it’s unlikely you’ll take many breaks to relax – which we now know both our bodies and brains require for healthy functioning.

After all, many of us live in societies where the first question when you meet someone is what you do for a living. Where we are so literally valued for the quality and extent of our accomplishments that those achievements often correlate, directly, to our ability to pay rent or put food on the table. Where complete strangers weigh these on-paper values to determine everything from whether we can rent that flat or buy that car or receive that loan. Where we then signal our access to those resources with our appearance – these shoes, that physique – and other people weigh that, in turn, to see if we’re the right person for a job interview or dinner invitation.

Fear of failure is getting magnified in other ways, too. Take social media: make a mistake today and your fear that it might be broadcast, even globally, is hardly irrational. At the same time, all of those glossy feeds reinforce unrealistic standards.

In my opinion, and I am not alone with it, it’s the idea that you don’t have to be perfect to be lovable or to be loved. It’s a work in progress. And,  what I’ve noticed too, is that, each time I’m able to replace criticizing and perfecting with compassion, I feel not only less stressed, but freer. Apparently, that’s not unusual.

How do you accept that nobody is perfect? If I could give you five tips to help you accept who you are, they would be this:

See your perceived flaws in a whole new light. Nothing is ever completely good or completely bad. …

Practice gratitude daily. …

Recognize that you are not your thoughts. …

Be vulnerable with others. …

Look after yourself.

Psychological maturity and the spiritual life

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

WE often recognize physical age without recognizing emotional maturity. Someone can be forty yet react to criticism like a child, while another quietly accepts disappointment, takes responsibility, and remains kind. Psychological maturity is not simply growing older; it is learning to live truthfully and responsibly.

Psychological maturity means becoming more fully oneself: knowing strengths and weaknesses, accepting reality, regulating emotions, making responsible decisions, forming healthy relationships, and pursuing worthwhile goals. It is gradual, not finished. We mature as experience, reflection, virtue, and grace reshape how we live.

A mature person does not mean someone who never becomes angry, afraid, disappointed, or sad. Maturity enables us to recognize emotions without becoming their prisoners. We can acknowledge pain, think calmly, choose a fitting response, and continue doing what love and responsibility require.

This distinction is important for Christian life. Spiritual growth does not automatically eliminate psychological immaturity. A person may pray much, know doctrine, attend Mass faithfully, and still depend excessively on approval, resist correction, become easily offended, or follow uncontrolled impulses. Grace builds upon nature.

The Christian vision sees human and spiritual maturity as connected. A healthy spiritual life integrates intelligence, emotions, freedom, relationships, and choices around God and the good. Psychological growth can also remove obstacles that make prayer, discernment, friendship, and self-giving difficult.

One important sign of maturity is freedom. Real freedom is not merely doing whatever we feel like doing. It is choosing the good even when impulses pull elsewhere. Virtue strengthens freedom, making our responses less automatic and decisions more deliberate.

Consider the workplace. An immature professional may become defensive when corrected, blame colleagues when projects fail, or need constant recognition. A mature one can admit mistakes, learn from criticism, appreciate another person's success, and work well without applause. Such maturity transforms competence into service.

The same applies within families. Emotional maturity helps us disagree without humiliating, listen without defending ourselves, and apologize without keeping score. It allows parents, spouses, siblings, and friends to recognize that loving someone does not mean controlling them. Charity needs truth, patience, forgiveness, and steadiness.

In Filipino culture, where family loyalty, and concern for others are precious, maturity means knowing when these virtues become distorted. We may avoid necessary conversations merely to keep peace, or agree outwardly while resentment grows within. Mature charity seeks authentic peace, not merely harmony.

The spiritual life becomes a school of maturity. Daily prayer teaches us to step outside ourselves. Examination of conscience teaches honest self-knowledge. Confession teaches responsibility and humility. Spiritual direction and sincere friendship can reveal blind spots. Sacrifice teaches that love sometimes requires doing what is difficult.

There is a profound connection between maturity and self-giving. A mature person increasingly moves from asking, “What do I want?” toward asking, “What is good? What does love require?” Christian maturity reaches its fullest expression in identification with Christ, whose freedom was expressed through obedience and service.

This does not mean becoming emotionally hard or endlessly cheerful. Mature Christians can grieve, struggle, and ask for help. They do not pretend suffering is pleasant. Instead, they bring their humanity to God. Faith does not suppress emotions; it teaches us to integrate them.

Maturity is a lifelong task. We should not become discouraged when we discover childish reactions within ourselves. Awareness is already a beginning. With honest self-examination, professional help, prayer, the sacraments, friendship, and steady practice of virtue, weaknesses can become places where growth begins.

The goal is not simply psychological balance or social success. The deepest goal is holiness: becoming the person God created us to be, capable of truth, freedom, friendship, and love. As our humanity becomes integrated, our spiritual life becomes more generous, peaceful, and fruitful.

Gold for the field, lead for the pen

 

by Xyrel James Allego Canonoy

|August 31, 2026

The drone footage of the Agusan del Sur Sports Complex is stunning.

From above, the 2026 Palarong Pambansa looks larger than life. Glowing grandstands, sweeping pyrotechnics, and thousands of young athletes marching across a pristine emerald field. Watching it through my phone screen, I felt the unmistakable urge to cheer. This is what happens when a nation decides that its youth are worth a stage.

It was neither the fireworks nor the medals that held my gaze. It was the stage itself. Because for eight years, I have been chasing one, too.  

I am a campus journalist. My arena has no turf, no floodlights, and no roaring crowds. It is defined by the frantic scratching of pens on newsprint, half-eaten meals crammed into 10-minute breaks, sputtering microphones, and makeshift newsrooms that consist of old laptops, broken desks, and a heat that feels like an opponent of its own.

For nearly a decade, the dream was simple: write well enough to survive the division, conquer the region, and earn a seat at the National Schools Press Conference (NSPC).

We were taught that talent earns you a platform. But journalism teaches you the real world long before it teaches you how to write: A stage does not exist simply because you deserve it. Someone has to pay to build it. And lately, the government has made it very clear whose stages are worth building.

While stadium lights illuminate the Palaro, the pathway for student journalists is being systematically dimmed. Under current Department of Education guidelines, from three, only a single regional champion per individual category advances to the NSPC, a cut wrapped in administrative logic.

I understand budget constraints. I really do. For a long time, campus publications worked on a tight budget. But it is hard not to feel the sting when you spend years being told that perseverance opens doors, only to watch the state make the doorway smaller.

I have experienced a regional competition, one contest away from the dream of nationals, broadcasting from a broken microphone mid-air, with only one chance to perform. An event that cost another year of trying.

What happens to the writer who placed second by half a point? What happens to the photojournalist whose frame captured the exact soul of a community, but lost on a technicality? What happens to the young mind learning to hold power accountable, only to be told there aren’t enough funds to hear their voice?

To be clear: our athletes deserve every peso, every crowd, and every piece of turf. Sports build character, discipline, and pride. Palaro is the breeding ground for the Olympics. I do not have anything against the field. But the contrast is impossible to ignore. We know how to turn youth excellence into a broadcast spectacle. A spectacle of fireworks, of colorful festivals, of enormous budgets. We are far less eager to invest in the quiet, critical spaces where young people learn to think, question, and expose.

Our teachers still shoulder transit costs out of their own pockets. Students still buy their own pens and paper. We subsidize our own right to represent our schools, while being told in every program script that we are the “future of the nation.”

The government does not have to choose between the athlete and the journalist, the torch and the microphone, the stadium and the newsroom. These are not competing dreams; they are the fundamental, indivisible pillars of a complete society. A torch shows us how fast we can run. A pen asks us where we are going.

Eight years with a pen did not just prepare me for a contest. It taught me to verify facts in an age of noise, to listen to the unheard, to speak when silence is easier, and to hold up an unyielding mirror to the world around me. Those aren’t competition skills; they are fundamentally the bedrock of a functioning democracy.

When the stadium lights fade, and the crowds go home, the stories remain. Someone has to write about the victory. Someone has to ask what happened behind the scenes. Someone has to document the truth for those who never made the podium, and keep the powerful honest long after the medals are handed out.

I will keep holding the pen, even if the microphones fail, the ink runs dry, and the seats shrink. But I hope the country I am trying to write for realizes before it’s too late: a nation that only builds fields for its runners, but starves the minds of its writers, will eventually run out of truth to stand on.

BINI, HANA, 4EVE unite for 'Asia Pop Girl Fest 2027'

 By Neil Ramos

Published Aug 29, 2026 03:42 pm

Girl groups BINI of the Philippines, HANA of Japan and 4EVE of Thailand are coming together for “Asia Pop Girl Fest 2027,” a three-city concert series bringing the three acts to Japan, Thailand and the Philippines.

The shows will kick off at LaLa arena TOKYO-BAY in Chiba on Jan. 22 and 23, 2027, followed by a Feb. 13 show at BITEC Live in Bangkok.

The series will make its way to Manila on Feb. 19 at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.

Each group will perform its own set, with the concert also featuring special stages that bring the three acts together.

HANA, 4EVE and BINI have each built strong followings in their respective countries while expanding their presence across Asia, making the concert series a rare meeting of three rising girl groups from different Asian pop scenes.

Ticket details and further information on the Bangkok and Manila shows will be announced at a later date.

Lubao flooding exposes urgent need for better flood control

By Manila Bulletin Newsroom

Published Aug 30, 2026 12:05 am | Updated Aug 29, 2026 04:51 pm

A two-storey house being swallowed by a raging river should never be dismissed as just another dramatic video content.

But that was precisely what happened in Barangay Sta. Rita-Sto. Cristo, Lubao, Pampanga, on Aug. 28. As floodwaters surged, the riverbank gave way and a home was swept into the torrent and then swallowed by the rampaging floodwater in a matter of minutes. The terrifying and heart-wrenching scene is a warning—and an indictment of how dangerously unprepared communities remain for extreme flooding.

The timing could hardly be more ominous. On Aug. 29, PAGASA placed Pampanga and neighboring provinces under a red rainfall warning as the southwest monsoon, or habagat, continued to dump heavy rain over parts of Luzon. A red warning means serious flooding is expected in flood-prone areas.

The Sta. Rita Dam incident exposes a problem far bigger than one overwhelmed structure.

The National Irrigation Administration said a huge volume of water rushed downstream and overwhelmed the dam, while debris from forests and agricultural areas accumulated and clogged some of its gates. The resulting surge damaged portions of the slope protection and retaining wall.

That demands accountability. But accountability must be comprehensive.

The government must answer for whether dams, dikes, drainage systems, and flood-control structures are properly designed, maintained, inspected and upgraded. It must explain whether danger zones are being enforced and why residential structures continue to exist along vulnerable riverbanks and dikes.

But the government is not the only actor responsible.

Illegal logging and destructive land-clearing practices, including kaingin in vulnerable upland areas, must be confronted because denuded watersheds can worsen erosion and send enormous amounts of debris downstream. If investigations establish that illegally cut timber or other improperly managed upland debris contributed to the obstruction at Sta. Rita, those responsible must be held accountable.

Residents, too, must face the truth, unforgettable as it may be: Like them, a river needs space to avoid swelling.

Building houses on dikes, easements, and riverbanks may appear harmless when the river is calm. During extreme rainfall, however, such structures can endanger lives—and serve as obstacles that complicate flood management and evacuation.

The answer is not another round of promises after disaster strikes.

The government must pursue integrated flood mitigation: Rehabilitate watersheds, enforce river easements, clear waterways and drainage channels before the rainy season, modernize dams and dikes, strengthen flood forecasting and early-warning systems, and conduct regular independent safety audits of critical infrastructure. Flood-control projects must also be transparent, scientifically designed, and subjected to public scrutiny.

The private sector must do its share. Developers must respect hazard maps and no-build zones. Industries must prevent waste and debris from entering waterways. Companies can finance watershed rehabilitation, river cleanup, community early-warning systems and disaster-preparedness programs—not merely distribute relief goods after floods.

And every Filipino has a responsibility.

Do not dump garbage into waterways. Do not build illegally on riverbanks and dikes. Report illegal logging, destructive land clearing, and unsafe construction. Heed evacuation orders. Participate in community disaster-preparedness efforts. Most importantly, demand accountability for every peso spent on flood-control infrastructure.

Climate and extreme weather may be beyond anyone’s control. But negligence is not.

The house swept away in Lubao should therefore become a national lesson. Flooding is not simply a natural disaster. Its consequences are shaped by decisions made in government offices, boardrooms, forests, farms, construction sites, and communities.

The Lubao river has delivered its warning.

Now the country must decide whether to listen, or wait for the next structure to disappear.

HAPPINESS IN TODAY'S WORLD

A blend of joyful daily feelings and deep life satisfaction, requiring us to balance personal well-being with modern challenges like digital noise and social comparison.

Feeling that the conditions of your life are good. Enjoying positive, healthy relationships with other people. Feeling that you have accomplished (or will accomplish) what you want in life. Feeling satisfied with your life. Feeling positive more than negative.

Happiness is a state of mind. Specifically, it is a state of “well-being and contentment.”

But the definition can be tricky and assumptions about the word can cause confusion. Many don’t even realize learning how to be happy is something that can be intentionally practiced. Some people, when they hear the word ‘happiness,’ assume it is speaking of an emotion such as pleasure or joy. For them, it is what people feel in the immediate here and now.

This is the reason some people say, “Don’t pursue happiness, seek joy. Happiness is fickle and fading, joy remains forever.”

But this short-term definition of happiness is not how everyone understands the word. Some define it to mean long-term satisfaction.

In fact, when I speak of experiencing happiness in life, I am not thinking of short-term emotions at all. I think of a quality of living—a much longer-term view of the word.

Both definitions are understood to be correct and speak of different realities.

But are they really that different? I don’t think so.

After all, a long-term experience of life satisfaction is almost certainly made up of many short-term feelings of joy and pleasure. Does that mean every day is a great day with no trials, temptations, or downturns? Certainly not. But it does mean when we look back at the many seasons of life, we can look back satisfied at how we navigated them.

The long-term feeling of life satisfaction is most experienced when we embrace the emotion of joy in the here and now.

And we accomplish that by taking steps each day to be happy.

What makes you feel happy now? Doing something you're good at, such as cooking or dancing, is a good way to enjoy yourself and have a sense of achievement. Try to avoid things that seem enjoyable at the time but make you feel worse afterwards, such as drinking too much alcohol or eating junk food.

Why is being happy important? Experiencing happiness is important for our emotional and physical health. A stronger sense of happiness and well-being has been shown to lead to better relationships, increase social connection and contribution to the lives of others, as well as contributing to healthier physical well-being.

Is being happy the most important thing in life? Happy people are healthier all around and more likely to be healthy in the future. Happy people live longer than those who are not as happy. Happy people are more productive and more creative, and this effect extends to all those experiencing positive emotions.

Am I happy? Yes. Living in the Philippines for almost 29 years for good, I learned to be happy. Even during hard times. Filipinos are generally a happy people. They can smile whatever the situation. Their happy-go-lucky nature and positive mindset allow them to bounce back from the direst of circumstances, from disasters, from wars, and surely from today's global situation.

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Questions, comments or suggestions? Email me: doringklaus@gmail.com or follow me on Facebook or LinkedIn  or visit one of my websites www.germanexpatinthephilippines.blogspot.com or www.klausdoringsclassicalmusic.blogspot.com .

PILYA BLOG Magazine and its publisher

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Shared post from Maria Ces Seidel

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Maria Ces Seidel

Digital creator

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As I get older, I’ve learned to value three things: my time, my peace, and my Iphone.

I no longer collect regrets, bad memories, or toxic people — my storage is already full. Most people say I’m “suplada.” Maybe because I’m quiet? But darling, if I’m not talking, I’m probably overthinking or judging silently.

I don’t eat everything, ayoko ng marumi, masikip at mabaho,. Stress na nga ang buhay, dadagdagan ko pa ba? I’m also very frank — what enters my brain usually exits my mouth without passing through customs.

But deep inside, I still care… even about the dull, the nonsense, and the idiots. I mean, surely the aliens haven’t fully possessed them yet… right?

Life is short, so I use it magically & wisely:

Laugh a lot

Exercise

Travel, and explore the nature

Have enough sleep.

Avoid drama whenever possible

And honestly? This is still a wonderful body and life to live in.